1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of tools and techniques for enhancing early childhood development. More specifically, the invention relates to systems and processes that permit an infant or small child to experience complex, polyphonic music such as ensemble music from a quality source in a way that maximizes the child""s opportunity to learn from and develop in response to the music, and further gives the infant or small child an opportunity to experiment or improvise with respect to the music, but only in such a way that will enhance the learning and neurological development process.
2. Description of the Related Technology
It has now been established that human infants are born with the ability to process and understand basic musical material. For example, their ability to discriminate two notes is as good as that of adults (Olisho, 1984), they can remember the contour (pattern of rising and falling pitches) of melodies (Trehub, Bull and Thorpe, 1984), they mentally segment (or xe2x80x9cchunkxe2x80x9d) extended melodies into smaller phrases as do adults (Thorpe and Trehub, 1989) and they comprehend rhythm (Trehub and Thorpe, 1989). They even can use music as an aid to remember previous daily events, and also exhibit an innate preference for musical sounds that are consonant rather than dissonant (Fagen et al., 1997). These findings show that children have the capacity to process and remember music and thereby to be influenced by music starting at a very early age.
In recent years, experts in childhood development, neurology and related fields have shown that music can have a significant positive impact on intellectual development. Exposure to music has been linked to improvements in learning to read and engage in mathematical and symbolic thinking, such as involved in solving spatial-temporal tasks like mental arrangement of puzzle pieces.
In a study conducted at the University of California Irvine, Rauscher and Shaw (1997) studied the effects of active participation in piano keyboard lessons on cognitive abilities. Over a two-year period, a numbers of preschoolers were split into a first group that was given piano lessons, a second group that was given singing lessons, a third group that was given computer lessons and a fourth group that were not given lessons of any kind. The four groups were then tested on their ability to a arrange pieces of a puzzle into a meaningful whole. The researchers found that the children who received keyboard lessons showed a significant increase in their ability to solve the visual-spatial tasks compared to each of the other groups.
Evidence of the connection between early exposure to certain types of music and enhanced intellectual development is also provided by the experiences that parents and researchers have had with the Kodxc3xa1ly musical education program, which was developed in Hungary and provides a structured approach to musical training in early childhood. The effect of this training on later academic development was studied by Hurwitz et al. (1975) at Children""s Hospital in Boston. With all other factors being equal, this study found a dramatic increase in reading scores between children who had been in the Kodxc3xa1ly program versus those who had not.
The process of brain development starts with the genes that the child has inherited from her parents. These genes determine the basic number of neurons that are present in the brain and the structure of the major neural pathways. Experience, however, shapes the interconnections that are developed between the neurons as the child grows and learns. Research by Weinberger at the University of California Irvine (1990-1998) has shown that musical sounds (tones) which attract attention can result in a xe2x80x9cretuningxe2x80x9d of brain cells (neurons) in the auditory cortex, which is the highest level of the auditory system and a region involved both in understanding language and music. Thus, interaction with musical sounds can enhance the ability of the brain to process, discriminate and remember sounds. These changes are likely to have a positive effect on a child""s ability to understand spoken words and build an advanced vocabulary.
The basis of music""s positive effects on reading has been explained by the work of Lamb and Gregory (1993). Learning to read requires sounding-out syllables which is based on learning to discriminate pitches in phonetic materials. Learning to read was closely identified with the fact that practice with listening to music improves pitch discrimination.
As more has been learned about the relationship of music to cognitive ability, parents have been making a greater effort to expose their children to music. Certain types of toys, such as small keyboard instruments that permit a child to play individual synthesized notes and that may also feature prerecorded synthesized tunes or a selection of percussive accompaniment are helpful to some extent because the child is given the opportunity to experiment and improvise. These types of toys, though, tend to lack quality acoustics and give little or no opportunity for the child to learn and understand the fundamental aspects of group or orchestral music, which concern how various types of instruments (strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion) interrelate to provide melody and harmony.
A need exists for a system, technique and method that permits a child to learn and recognize the different sounds made by individual instruments and the various sounds and combinations that two or more instruments make playing together.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a system, technique and method that permits a child to learn and recognize the different sounds made by individual instruments and the various sounds and combinations that two or more instruments can make playing together.
In order to achieve the above and other objects of the invention, an apparatus for facilitating an understanding and recognition of polyphonic music in infants and small children includes, according to a first aspect of the invention, a housing; a speaker positioned within the housing; a plurality of input devices positioned on the housing; and a music generator within the housing for storing and playing at least one prearranged multi-channel musical composition, the music generator being electronically connected to the speaker and the input devices, and wherein the music generator is constructed and arranged to be able to, in response to actuation of at least one of the input devices by a user, change the identity of channels of the multi-channel composition that are being played over the speaker, and wherein the change in channels is effected without interrupting the musical composition as it plays.
A method for teaching musical concepts to infants and small children according to a second aspect of the invention includes steps of providing a child-friendly apparatus that is capable of playing an orchestral composition that includes a plurality of different musical instruments; actuating the apparatus to play the composition; and modifying the number and of instruments that are playing as the composition plays, whereby the infant or small child is made aware of the effect of the presence or absence of different instruments in the overall composition.
According to a third aspect of the invention, a method for teaching musical concepts to infants and small children includes steps of providing a child-friendly apparatus that is capable of playing an orchestral composition that includes a plurality of different musical instruments; playing a developmentally appropriate composition with the apparatus; and modifying the number of instruments that are playing as the composition plays, whereby the infant or small child is made aware of the effect of the presence or absence of different instruments in the overall composition.
These and various other advantages and features of novelty that characterize the invention are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed hereto and forming a part hereof. However, for a better understanding of the invention, its advantages, and the objects obtained by its use, reference should be made to the drawings which form a further part hereof, and to the accompanying descriptive matter, in which there is illustrated and described a preferred embodiment of the invention.